


Capsize

by Moonprincess92



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Sailing, Capsizing, F/M, IF IN DOUBT LET IT OUT, Kissing, Sailing, Summer, Summer Romance, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonprincess92/pseuds/Moonprincess92
Summary: “What if the boat tips over?”“Look,” Jyn slams her hands down onto the side of the now fully-rigged Laser. “I win every summer regatta, and I’m not having you mess up my record! Just do what I tell you and we’ll be fine.”He decides to take her word for it. She certainly sounds confident enough.“I am so fucking dead,” he mutters as they push the boat towards the water.(I.E. a sailing au that literally no one asked for)





	Capsize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guineapiggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/gifts).



 

The first time they meet, she’s 16 and ready to destroy.

(He’s 17 and was forced into this).

“Jyn’s small, the two of you can go together,” Draven suggests literally minutes before the two of them are apparently attempting to rig a laser together, whatever that means. The breeze is at least warm. The sun shines down through the clouds and he honestly has to shield his eyes from the glare off the boat. Or maybe that’s the girl he’s been paired up with. She moves with utter confidence, pulling this and tying that, and his utter incompetence becomes rather obvious very quickly in comparison. Eventually, the tiny girl puts her hands on her hips and exclaims,

“You don’t put the tiller on until you’re in the water.”

“Sorry,” Cassian hastily drops the contraption onto the rough sand under their feet, which naturally only makes the girl seethe more.

“YOU DON’T JUST DROP IT–”

“Sorry! I don’t know what I’m doing!” Cassian holds up his hands as Jyn dives down to pick up said tiller and place it gently back into the hull of the boat. “I’ve never sailed before!”

“I can tell, you suck at this.”

“Hey!”

“I’ve been sailing since I was four,” Jyn lifts her nose a little, her black hair tucked underneath the official ‘Yavin Junior Yacht Squadron’ cap. “You’re one of the kids from the home, right? Like, no parents and stuff?”

He nods. Cassian isn’t dumb. He knows how this works, understands that he doesn’t really belong here. He’s been living in the foster home ever since he was six and this is just another activity that his carers are trying out in the hopes of giving all the children equal opportunities in life. Last year it was rock climbing (he’d actually gotten pretty good) and the year before it was a pottery making class (his looked like shrunken heads, but he’d at least tried) and this year it is apparently sailing. Every Saturday for the entire summer, he is going to be forced down to the Yavin Yacht Club and the instructors are going to attempt to teach him how to sail without fucking destroying something… to be fair, he hadn’t counted on the tiny partner.

Jyn’s supposed to be telling him what to do, but she ends up rigging the entire boat herself and honestly, it’s probably for the best. If Cassian had to attempt any of the ridiculous knots she’s doing, they’d probably drown out there. The wind shakes the trees as they all work, the lake-side beach dotted with about twelve to fifteen small boats all manned by kids literally anywhere as young as eight.  _Jesus_. They actually let kids do this? The eldest is probably Ben, who lives in the home with Cassian and is 17 too, but when he glances over at him Ben at least looks like he is enjoying learning how to make these boats safe enough to go out on the water.

Cassian, on the other hand, is just praying that he doesn’t die today. 

“So uhh, what happens if we get hit by a water-skier?” he asks.

Jyn barely glances up. “The skiers are in a different part of the lake.”

“Ok, but what if we crash into another boat?”

“These boats are all donated,” Jyn shrugs. “They’ll probably break and we’ll get yelled at.”

“Are you seriously not even scared of drowning?”

“We have life-jackets and Draven’s always out there in the chase boat,” Jyn rolls her eyes. “Blimey, calm down, mate.”

“ _What if the boat tips over?_ ”

“Look,” Jyn slams her hands down onto the side of the now fully-rigged Laser. “I win every summer regatta, and I’m not having you mess up my record! Just do what I tell you and we’ll be fine.”

He decides to take her word for it. She certainly sounds confident enough.

“I am so fucking dead,” he mutters as they push the boat towards the water.

He’s still not used to the terminology, so when Jyn says it’s a land start he just assumes that they’ll push the boat out and start racing straight away, which thankfully turns out to be right. What turns out to be harder, however, is throwing himself up into a boat that’s already caught the wind and is barely big enough for two people. “Where am I supposed to go?!” he yells.

“Just stay up front and keep your head down!” Jyn calls over the wind. She has no problems leaping gracefully into the boat. Cassian, on the other hand, jumps in what he assumes is a fucking spectacular salmon impression. He does as he’s told, clambering to the front of the boat, but still manages to accidentally hit himself on something as he lies on his back. His legs are too long and end up hanging over the side and he rather feels like screwing up his eyes and hoping for the best… but he finds it in him to remember that he’s a part of this race, like it or not. He glances up at the sail full of air, then up at Jyn.

Boy, that was a mistake.

She’s perched up on the side of the boat, the wooden tiller in one hand and a blue rope that seems to be attached to the sail in the other. Her cap is clipped to her t-shirt and she’s wearing a swimsuit underneath so that all he can notice is her bare legs resting not even inches away from his face. He swallows anxiously before hastily turning to see where in the hell they’re supposed to go.

Was the boat really supposed to go this fast?

“What are we aiming for?” he calls up to her.

“That yellow buoy over there!” She points with her foot, which nearly gives him a heart attack. “We have to go around it to port, then down to the bottom mark, then back up, then back to the shore.”

“I didn’t understand a word of that.”

“It’s just a windward-leeward!”

“Are you even speaking English?”

“For god’s sake – TACKING!” she suddenly yells out and before he can think, a giant metal pole is heading straight for his face. He yelps, ducking down so quickly that he slams his ass against a cleat of some kind and Jyn laughs, already gracefully perched on the other side of the boat.

“I told you to keep your head down.” 

“You didn’t say when!”

“I thought you’d at least know what a tack is – move so your head is up here!” 

It’s a mission to manoeuvre his body in the tiny boat, but he somehow manages it and honestly, it’s a lot less terrifying when his head is away from the water. A gust of wind, however, makes the boat tip even more and he feels his heart ram through his throat. Jyn is thankfully non-phased and simply lets out a little of the blue rope she’s holding, which seems to stabilise the boat once more.

“Ok, clearly I have overestimated your sailing knowledge,” she says. “Let me give you a crash course.”

“Not exactly the phrasing one would like to hear when on a boat in the middle of a lake.”

She rolls her eyes and if he isn’t mistaken, it sounds like she snickers a little too. “Sailing 101!” she says. “You can’t sail directly into the wind, so if that’s the direction you want to go, you have to zig-zag. Every time the bow – the front – of the boat moves across the wind to the other side is called a tack. The boom is this thing–” She leans so she can slam a hand down onto the metal pole that had nearly taken him out earlier. “–and every time we tack it’s gonna swing to the other side, so you have to watch out.”

“Right.”

“This is the tiller, it’s basically the steering wheel,” Jyn carries on, indicating the wooden handle she’s holding. “Except if you want to go left, you move it right, and if you want to go right, you move it left.”

“Perfect.”

“This is the mainsheet!” She holds up the rope in her other hand. “It controls the sail. The mainsail technically, but I’m not even going to mention jibs at this point. If you’re going upwind you pull it tight, if you’re going downwind you let it out.”

“Great! I understand none of this!”

Jyn makes an exasperated noise. “REPEAT AFTER ME: IF IN DOUBT, LET IT OUT.”

“IF IN DOUBT, LET IT OUT!” Cassian yells back, although what he’s supposed to let out he’s still not entirely sure.

“TACKING!”

God, he is going to have no ass by the end of this.

* * *

 

Honestly, they manage to do quite well until about halfway through. It helps that Jyn is the one who’s sailing, because he’s seriously still just along for the ride here, despite the amount of times Jyn has tried to explain what she’s doing. However, just as they are approaching the first mark (and pulling ahead of several other people, he might add, which has Jyn cheering) Draven pulls up alongside them in the chase boat.

“JYN. STOP DOING ALL THE WORK, LET THE KID HAVE A GO TOO.”

It’s a miracle he can even be heard over the wind and the sound of the hull crashing into the waves, but apparently these people were well trained in deciphering loud voices over decent distances. Jyn groans and Cassian holds up a hand hastily.

“No, it’s fine, I really think it’s best you just do it anyway–” he begins.

“I would,” Jyn rubs her forehead. “except I’m kinda on Draven’s hit list. Doesn’t like me… you know, for some reason.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

It just comes out and he cringes at the look she gives him. However, instead of being blasted to pieces by her laser eyes, she almost seems taken aback. Like she didn’t realise that he had it in him. She beckons him closer and says, “Come up here.”

“ _Up there?_ ” Cassian indicates where she’s sitting right on the edge of the boat, sometimes even leaning out right over the water when the wind gets strong. He seriously hopes his voice didn’t squeak just then. He coughs quickly before adding, “But the boom will kill me!”

“Not if you do it right, come on – your weight will at least save me from having to counter all the time,” She reaches out and grabs him by the lifejacket, practically hauling him up. He moves until he’s by her side, wind slaming into his face and making his eyes water. Any second now they’re going to hit a wave and he’ll be thrown overboard, or they will tack again and he’ll be knocked out cold… but for a second, he sits there and feels something like adrenaline run through him. His skin is prickling but he realises he’s smiling and he turns back to face Jyn.

“See, this isn’t so bad is it?” she points out. Then, she’s handing him the blue rope and that’s about when the panic sinks in again. “Hold that, pull it when I tell you to and remember: if in doubt, let it out.”

“IF IN DOUBT, LET IT OUT.”

“You don’t have to scream that every time.”

“Sorry, I’m a little on edge.”

Jyn rolls her eyes, but they’re coming up on the yellow buoy bobbing around in the water and she shifts a little. “Right, we’re going to tack around the mark – BODHI!” she suddenly screams across the water to another boat nearby. “BEAR THE FUCK OFF, MATE!”

“Is he going to crash into us?” Cassian fights to keep calm. The kid who apparently went by the name of Bodhi was getting rather dangerously close to them as they approached the mark and Jyn threw up her middle finger at him.

“Nah,” Jyn rolled her eyes. “He’s just got right of way, so the bastard is purposefully trying to push us down so we don’t make it round the mark–”

“Honestly, you’re still speaking a lot of boat lingo here and I don’t–”

“Tacking!”

“ _Jesus Christ_ –”

They literally only just make it around the mark. Bodhi’s laser zips past with a laugh, mainly because Cassian’s attempt to clamber to the other side of the boat meant that he didn’t let out the rope in his hands as they moved to the downwind leg. Their loss of power slows them down considerably, until of course Jyn screams, “LET IT OUT!” and he lets go of the rope completely.

“Bloody hell…” Jyn rubs her forehead, their sail now flapping uselessly and kind of terrifyingly in the wind. She yanks at the mainsheet, pulling it in enough that they start to get momentum again before shoving it back into his hands.

“I told you putting me in charge of anything was a bad idea,” Cassian says, weakly.

She doesn’t even answer that time, which he is a little grateful for. Thankfully, he discovers that there’s a significantly lesser threat of tipping over going downwind. Naturally, they had to be going what seemed to be even faster, but for a while at least he’s able to just sit there without having to move very much. Other boats, he notices, are zipping past them, but Jyn apparently doesn’t seem to care much anymore. After several minutes of listening to nothing but the rush of air, Jyn suddenly turns to ask,

“So what’s the story?”

He glances back at her. “What do you mean?”

She’s completely unabashed and it throws him a little. “We’re gonna be stuck on this boat for at least another hour together, we might as well get to know each other. Why are you here?”

If anyone else asked him like that, he would’ve said to fuck off. But his life is literally in this girl’s hands, and the way she looks at him makes him get a niggly feeling that she has a story too somewhere, underneath the hat and lifejacket.

“Every summer, the foster home chooses something for us all to do,” Cassian explains, casually. “Something to keep us occupied, out of trouble, exposing us to the world’s endless opportunities… or some shit like that.”

“And they chose sailing this summer?”

“I’ve been dreading it ever since school got let out.”

“What year are you?”

“It’s gonna be my last year in September,” Cassian answers. He’s actually been trying not to think about it too much. “You?”

“Same. I’m young in my year, my birthday’s in August.”

“And you’ve really been sailing since you were four?”

“My parents used to sail,” Jyn shrugs. “I’ve been on boats as long as I can remember, four was just the first time I was officially allowed to join the classes at the club.”

“And you’ve… always liked it?”

She glances at him with something like a smirk. “Are you trying to ask if I’ve ever been scared?”

“Well, I have to admit that I haven’t been able to breathe properly ever since we arrived at the club and it would be reassuring to know if that feeling will ever go away.”

Jyn lets out a snort of laughter, which at least sounds promising. “Sailing shouldn’t be terrifying,” she says. “It can be dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, but honestly it’s fun. Especially when the wind is decent like this,” She holds out her spare arm then, flinging it up into the air. The wind tosses her ponytail up from behind her and she practically soars over the water.

She could’ve been flying.

He swallows a little with difficulty before asking, “And if the wind is crap?”

“Then you’re literally floating on a hunk of fibreglass in the middle of a lake,” she catches his look and adds, “… it’s a real hit or miss kind of hobby.”

He smiles a little. In their downwind interlude, it seems that they’ve finally caught up with the main group of boats, although the downside appears to be that they are approaching yet another mark. Jyn shifts a little as they watch the buoy grow bigger and bigger as they get closer.

“Right,” she says. “Now at the bottom mark you have to gybe around instead of tack. That means instead of crossing the wind with the bow of the boat, you’re going to use the stern. It can be a bit harder than tacking because the wind catches suddenly, so you have to control it–” 

“I appreciate the lesson,” Cassian says, desperately. “but maybe just tell me exactly what to do–”

“Ok, fine, swap places!” She suddenly crouches forward, gesturing quickly that he should scoot further towards the back of the boat and replace her hand that had been holding the tiller. While quite happy to hand over the mainsheet, Cassian realises that he’s now in charge of steering the boat and honestly, it might be even more of a nerve-wracking job.

“When I tell you,” Jyn calls from her new place on his other side, reaching up with a gloved hand and holding onto the elaborate pulley system of ropes that controlled the sail. “you’re going to push the tiller away from you, ok?”

“Ok _._ ”

“You can sound a bit more confident,” she throws back with a slight tease.

That’s news to him, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on the way she looks at him in that moment. The buoy is floating right in front of him and he freezes until Jyn yells, “Now!” He pushes, and their Laser suddenly swings around at a rather alarming speed. Jyn swears spectacularly as the ropes are literally ripped from her hands, the boom slamming across the boat so quickly that it’s a miracle that Cassian ducked in time. Before he can think, she slams a hand on top of his on the tiller and she’s pulling it just a fraction, enough that they thankfully come under control once more.

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” she exclaims. “I said push away you, I didn’t say yank it!”

“I didn’t know how hard I was supposed to push!”

“I might be going out on a limb here, but can we at least try and have no more heart attacks for the rest of the race?”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

She laughs.

The second upwind leg unfortunately goes a little rougher than the first. The wind’s certainly picked up, and the two of them are forced to sit right on the edge of the boat to keep it balanced. Jyn insists on swapping places again and his heart is slamming somewhere in his throat every time they have to lean back over the water. “On the plus side,” he says at one point. “I think I’m getting the hang of this–”

Naturally, as soon as the words are out of his mouth a strong gust suddenly slams into their sail. The small Laser keels dangerously over and he struggles to let the mainsheet out fast enough. The last thing he hears before they spectacularly capsize is Jyn shrieking and a loud  _splash_.

Then, he hits the water.

“SHIT, that’s cold!” he yelps once his head breaks the surface.

Jyn’s next to him, spluttering a little and pushing back her fringe. Her hat is bobbing along next to her in the water, still attached to her shirt thanks to the tie. Their Laser is flopped forlornly onto its side, the sail being the only thing keeping it upright, although Cassian is certain that it won’t take long for the water to pull it under. He catches Jyn’s eye and suddenly, she’s swimming over to him and apparently laughing her ass off.

“You made me capsize in the first race of the season!” She hits him on the shoulder once she’s close enough. “Good god, I’m never living this one down.”

“I tried to let it out, I really did–”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” she shakes her head, grinning. “C’mon, let’s just get the fucking boat back up.”

Thankfully, it’s a fairly simple concept getting the Laser back up the right way. The two of them swim around to where the centre board is sticking up out of the water and pull, pull until the sail finally swings back up out of the water… the hard part is apparently getting back in said boat. Jyn has absolutely no problems hoisting herself up out of the water, dripping everywhere as she clambers back in, but admittedly for a second he wonders whether she’s going to simply set off without him and leave him in the Laser’s wake. His throat only clenches for a second however, since she turns and reaches down for him, grabbing him by the lifejacket. His return to the boat isn’t quite so graceful. He perfects his earlier salmon impression, flopping over her lap as he’s hauled up into the boat once more. It’s freezing with the wind slicing against his wet skin and his teeth chatter as he struggles upright.

But he looks up at Jyn as she still holds onto his lifejacket… and he wonders if it would be in poor taste to compare it to being held by a lifeline.

* * *

 

“Oh, I am fucking TERRIBLE at it,” Cassian practically shouts over the music that pounds the walls of the clubhouse. “We ended up capsizing so many times that we pulled a crack in the hull and the Laser fucking _sank_.”

“Cassian,  _I know_ ,” Kay says. “People have been making fun of you all evening.”

It turns out that sailors like to party as much as they like to rib each other. Everyone was polite and formal during the actual prize giving, apart from a few ‘fun’ awards that had been handed out, including ‘Best Buoy Collision’, ‘Best Man Overboard’ and ‘Best Sinking of An Entire Boat’… he and Jyn had won the latter one amidst a lot of cheers and teasing. Thankfully, once the prize giving was over, a disco lightbulb was screwed in and the music turned up loud, the after party getting well underway. Of course, with a majority of the attendees being under 18, it basically just involved a bunch of kids jumping around a makeshift dance floor, teens hanging out in clumps and groups around the edges of the hall while the parents and other adults drank too much beer at the bar. Cassian thankfully at least knows Kay and the other kids from the foster home. The tall, lanky 17-year-old might be his only friend, but Kay has been with him almost as long as they’ve both been in the home, and though his abruptness might leave most people a little slighted, Cassian honestly appreciates him.

“Just think, though,” Kay says as they eye up the dance floor with trepidation. “you could’ve been the poor bugger who fell out and their partner sailed off without them.”

“Might I remind you WE SANK THE ENTIRE BOAT?”

“You managed to get it back onto shore again.”

“Yeah,” Cassian shakes his head. “after having to be rescued by the chase boat! God, Jyn isn’t going to want anything to do with me after this…”

“Why do you care?” Kay asks in genuine confusion.

“Kay, I think your ace-ness is showing,” Cassian snorts. His best friend gives a dawning look before immediately seeking out the girl that Cassian isn’t quite ready to admit that he’d had an eye on all evening. She’s across the clubhouse on the other side of the dance floor, laughing at something someone has said within the group of friends she stands with. Her hair is no longer tied back under her cap, but left down to dry around her face and it’s kind of hard to look at, to be honest. Kay glances back at him with an expression that clearly says,  _really?_

“She’s cute, ok?” Cassian throws up his hands.

“I give it a 28% chance of happening.”

 “Thanks for the confidence, man,” Keen to change the subject, Cassian cuts back in again by asking, “So you clearly survived the first race of the season, then?”

“I didn’t sink the boat, if that’s what you mean,” Kay huffs. “Honestly, turns out sailing isn’t that hard. It’s all just physics, really.”

“Of course,” Cassian says. “Think though, this is going to be our last summer excursion. This time next year… we’ll finally be on our own.”

“No teachers or carers anymore.”

“I find it faintly terrifying,” Cassian admits. “You?”

“Oh, no. I’m tired of it all. I’m ready to leave.”

Cassian downs his OJ like it’s beer, wishing not for the first time that evening that it was. He doesn’t know where Kay’s pragmatism comes from. He might be ready to face the world, to go out on his own, get a job, get a life, look after himself, but something in Cassian is hanging on, and he hates it. There’s a heavy weight pushing him down, and it gets stronger whenever he remembers that he’s nearly at the end of the road. He’s supposed to be grown up now, strong now, he’s called ‘young man’ and reminded daily of how he needs to focus because he only has one year of school left, this is where he needs to make all the decisions that will ultimately define his adult life…

He’s never felt more like a child.

He glances at Jyn across the room. His plan had been to avoid her all evening in the hopes that she might have forgotten the Accidental Sinking Incident by this time next week. But she’s young too. She’s young and confident and everything Cassian isn’t and if this is the last time he gets to spend a summer messing around and forgetting everything important, then…

“Fuck it,” he declares. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

“You what?” Kay says in bewilderment.

“Wish me luck.”

“Luck with what? WAIT – you’re actually serious? – CASSIAN –”

But Cassian is already disappearing into the crowd of partying sailors, leaving his utterly baffled best friend behind. He would figure it out eventually. He forces his legs to keep moving and not stop, because if he stops he will chicken out, and  _he can’t chicken out, damn it_ …

Shit, she’s still with her friends. He doesn’t quite have the guts to reach out directly, so instead he opts for just casually joining the circle, staying quiet and listening to the chatter about how last year’s exam results had finally come through, how Kasey and John had apparently hooked up at Jeanie’s party last weekend, how Jyn had managed to sink an entire boat in the first race of the season –

“Yeah, we’re still on that apparently,” Jyn side-eyes him from where he had sidled up to her. He blinks, heart racing at the thought that she had apparently already noticed him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Again. I didn’t mean to–”

“Nah, don’t even worry about it,” Jyn just waves a hand, turning her back on the rest of the conversation. “I’ll never live it down, but I’m over it.”

“Thanks for having my ass out there, by the way,” Cassian says. “I don’t think I’ve mentioned that yet, I might’ve drowned if it weren’t for you.”

“Are you always this dramatic?”

“I’m an orphan,” Cassian throws back. “My life is dramatic by default.”

That makes her go quiet for a moment, and he wishes he hadn’t drunk all of his drink just to have something to do other than stare at her. The disco lightbulb sends colourful shards across her face as she contemplates him.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. “Did you wanna talk or some shit…?”

“No, no it’s fine,” he said, hastily. “It was a long time ago, I make jokes about it now. Sorry.”

“Oh, thank god,” Jyn cracks a grin. “I thought for a second I was gonna have to get sentimental.”

“I know I just met you today, but you don’t exactly strike me as sentimental, Jyn.”

“That’s the way I like it,” she says, happily. “Now, we’re not allowed to talk about sad shit or sailing shit anymore, the after party’s are supposed to be about having fun and getting fucked up, so you better have some other topic of conversation to entertain me.”

“Tell me, how are you supposed to get fucked up when you can’t even access the bar?”

Jyn just hands him the innocent juice she’s been drinking the whole evening. He takes a sip and realises that it’s not just been spiked, it’s been spiked strong. He coughs without meaning to and she laughs at him.

“The parents all get plastered at these, so long as you don’t get too drunk, you’re golden,” she says.

He grins. He smiles, he grimaces, he smirks, but he doesn’t do fucking _grinning_ , and this girl is making him.

What is he getting into?

* * *

 

They honestly don’t drink that much in the end. He really only accepts enough that he’s not too scared to take her hand and pull her along for a dance. Jyn ignores all the little kids giggling as she slings her arms around his neck, moving in time to the latest upbeat pop song of the summer. Her hair is sweaty at the edges and he remembers how her hair was plastered to her head as they hit the water. It’s a very different sensation now. He’s pretty sure she’s pretending that she doesn’t know the words but she’s humming under her breath and he can feel the heat rising off her under his hands on her hips. He remembers that she mentioned her parents earlier in the day and  _Christ_ , he hopes that they aren’t somewhere over at the bar right now. Not that they’d have anything to worry about, because they’re just dancing. He might still be trying to figure out how it happened, but  _they’re only dancing_ , and it barely even qualifies as such anyway, rather it’s just jumping up and down to the bass that thundered through the floor of the clubhouse.

It’s just dancing, but it feels like something else at the same time. His fingers clench a little at her hips and for a moment he lets himself imagine that he has the guts to pull her closer. He would never dare, but it’s just as well since she catches his eye and he just knows she’d be the kind of girl to trail her hands down his neck and shoulders, nails scraping a little into his skin. She would step in as his arms cinched tighter, pressing her hips against his. He might pass out a little, but he would let her wrap herself around him, hands skimming up and down his back until eventually, they settle somewhere around his ass…

Jyn pulls away. _Wait, shit_. 

His head is very quickly forced to snap back to reality. Feeling a little like his skin is on fire, she reaches out and tugs on his hand and begins to push through the crowd of raucous sailors. Eventually, they find themselves outside. The breeze is still warm enough for t-shirts, and flies dart around his face that he slaps at until Jyn leads him down the deck that lines the outside of the clubhouse. She leans against the rail and he joins her, the music just a distant thud in his chest now. Yachts gleam out on their moorings, Lake Yavin rippling gently ahead of them.

Jyn turns to him.

“I love a good party, but sometimes you just need to get out for a bit,” she says.

“I feel you.”

“You know, you’re not half bad, Cassian,” Jyn smirks, glancing away. “I took you for a baby at first who was going to cry at the first sign of keeling, but I was proven wrong.”

“Oh, don’t worry, the spray from the waves masked my very real tears.”

She laughs, and he’s not sure he’s actually made a girl laugh this much in one day before. It might be a new record for him. “I guess you got the rest of the summer to harden up,” she mentions, lightly.

“Ah, yes,” he nods. “a whole summer before being plunged into impending adulthood, all while still being forced to take exams.”

“You’ve been given the lecture too, huh?”

“I am all too familiar with the lecture.”

“Finally! Someone who gets it,” Jyn exclaims. “I’m 16, I don’t want to be making Important Life Decisions right now! I just want to sail boats and mess around, at least while I still can.”

He’s not sure what it is. Maybe it’s the way the moon hits her hair that’s still hanging around her shoulders, maybe it’s the subtle way she’s leaning into him, maybe he’s just gone a little crazy. Whatever it is, he throws all caution to the wind and says,

“Sailing boats I’m a little out of my depth with, but I’d be willing to mess around with you.”

Her eyes snap to his.

“Do you mean that how I think you mean it?” she says.

“It sounded sexier in my head.”

“Everything does.”

Later, at the end of the summer, both of them will say that they kissed the other first. The reality is that Cassian will never really be sure, only that one second he’s staring at her and the next, her fingers are in his hair and her lips are pressed to his. One of his hands splays out, hastily grasping the deck railing while the other curls up her back, feeling the bikini strings under her t-shirt. His heart is pounding, not unlike being on a Laser going upwind. He’s not sure when he switched to sailing analogies. He’s not sure that he cares. They stand there and kiss the hell out of each other, until eventually the clubhouse door opens somewhere behind them. They pull apart hastily as apparently one of the young families leave to make their way home for the evening. There are the giggles of an over-tired 10-year-old and the sudden surge in music until the door swings back closed once more behind them.

Jyn lets out a long breath.

“YEAH,” she says. “I am absolutely cool with doing that some more. You know, I think I'm actually looking forward to this summer.”

He tries not to smile too much as he joins her in leaning once again against the deck railing.

His lips still tingle.

**Author's Note:**

> so apparently i decided to write what i know, so that means yall get a sailing au!!! the story of jyn and cassian accidentally sinking their boat is 100% a true story that once happened to me (in my defence, the boat was REALLY OLD and it was POST-HURRICANE WINDS OK?!?!?! i had to be towed in and legimitately never lived it down lmao). i kind of want to write the story of their entire summer, but i couldn't possibly promise anything rn, so please know that the idea is at least in my head :D 
> 
> this was written for my girl Carrie (@ruby-red-inky-blue) who actually asked for a completely different au, but after struggling for a million years this is the one that naturally came out and i just went with it lol. i hope you liked it!!! 
> 
> pls let me know what you think!! thanks so much for reading <3   
> xoxo


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